Week of October 19th: Nonfiction of Inquiry Process/ Elephant Scientist Literature Circle

   This week in class we conducted our third literature circle on the nonfiction book Elephant Scientist. For this literature circle we had to find 5 places within the book that we had wonderings about, and then we had to conduct research to answer our wonderings. Following that we created QR codes through a QR code generator and placed the codes inside the book in the places in the text that we had our wonderings in. I did research on concepts like elephant communication and elephant ritualistic behavior that I read about in the book but wanted to find out even more on.

   In our literature circle groups in class we went around and showed each other what we had discovered in our research. I thought it was really interesting to learn about all the things that other people had inquired about. It was also really cool when we discovered that other people did their a few of their inquiries on the same things as ours.

   I really enjoyed this project because it gave me the opportunity to see different people's perspectives on the book. I think using the QR codes is a very creative use of today's technology, and I can definitely see myself using that type of project with the kids in my future classroom. I think children would enjoy it and get a lot out of it, and it helps children think more critically into what they are reading.